itch.io

Hi! Thanks for playing and I appreciate you taking the time to give your feedback even though you didn’t feel like the game resonated with you. All feedback is valid and I appreciate you sharing your thoughts. 

When I update this I have a lot of things I intend to improve. The visual clarity and difficulty are two large ones.

I think I mentioned this in another reply but the reason you and a lot of players struggle with the difficulty is that this game was not made with a game jam level difficulty in mind. I genuinely loved developing this game and was having so much fun playing it that I stopped really making it for the jam and started making it for myself. The game is definitely far too hard and too long for a game jam level difficulty yet I’m proud of where it is and excited to continue work.

I don’t fault you for not clicking with the game or putting time into it, I’m the same way where some specific genres just don’t appeal to me. Thanks for giving it a try!

This was fun. The platforming felt good although I never really felt like the lava was a threat. The story felt a bit shoved into the game as it was just a lot of text at the start which I decided to skip halfway through. I'm assuming the boss was the animal but there was nothing really 'animal' about it. I also didn't really like the boss because it didn't really align with the games mechanics, like the platforming, and it took me two minutes to realize I had to touch it to deal damage as touching enemies is actively discourage in the game. Overall, it was an enjoyable experience, well done.

Rage inducing yet still fun. I think the difficulty was a bit high, and I also felt like the levels felt a bit all over the place in terms of difficulty without a clear curve. There were a few points when you could leave the map and the controls were a bit finnicky. I liked the shader and the simple art style. Overall, well done!

Really nice job, incredibly polished game. The art and music were really cute and fun, the animal and projectile inclusions were done well. I wish that moving off of the map was a little more forgiving or that the cat was a little more careful. I also think some way to make the cat sit down so that you can ignore it while doing something yourself for a bit would have been nice. I still had a great time though, nice job!

Really cool game! The y-sorting and collision didn't seem to be working sadly and I had to restart after trying to roll my dice. I think that the dice as projectiles were really cool and the animal was worked in very well. I think the battle music could have had a slightly longer loop as I found it quite grating after a bit but that's small criticism. Everything worked really well together and I think you did a great job!

Sounds like it was a pretty rough development cycle but it still came out nicely. Breaking the rocks was still incredibly satisfying and having do so to explore the map and find your way out was a nice addition. While the game felt a bit incomplete, it still left me feeling as if I had a full experience and I had fun, which is nice. I liked the little duck too (^)> great job!

Thanks so much for playing and for this wonderful feedback :D a lot of the criticism is valid and I'm planning to address in a later version but I'm glad you enjoyed it nonetheless.

There's not much gameplay but the story is quite touching and it manages to address every part of the criteria decently well. I found the story to be a bit predictable but it was still enjoyable and kept me playing. The customization options were surprisingly robust. Sometimes the dog would run in a circle around the ball instead of picking it up for me which doesn't seem intended but other than that I didn't run into any bugs. Overall, good job!

Fast travel between checkpoints was my main idea. The other idea for smaller bits would just be like levers or button or whatever that you can trigger and open up some sort of path to get from A to B faster. Not necessarily something huge but maybe instead of climbing up this ladder type thing you can just take the shortcut up. The movement speed could also be overall faster but I think for this game a faster speed wouldn’t really work well. All in all I think fast travel would fix most of the issues so I’d focus on that and circle back if there’s extra time.

Wow. You made math fun. Going into this I wasn't sure what to expect and was kind of disappointed at first, but quickly fell in love with the game. It's so simple yet there's a lot of depth, especially in the optional levels which are a really great addition. The writing and story is great and the art serves as a great vessel to move it forward. I really like the trig and absolute value questions, I think that's when I really started enjoying myself. I'm going to be honest I'm surprised but this is one of my favorites so far, well done!

Everything came together quite nicely! I found the hitboxes for the spikes to be wayyy to large compared to their sprites, which was a bit annoying when riding a snail across but horrible when traversing up the part with the angled spikes. The animals and projectiles work really well together but I don't really know what the story was. The art and music was simple but consistent and an enjoyable enough vessel for the gameplay. Overall, nice job!

This game was a ton of fun when it was at it's best. The controls felt really good and I love the ducks and using them to rocket jump. I think the end of the story was very abrupt but I might have missed something in the last level as I rocket jumped accidently straight into the end from decently far away. The animals, mostly the duck, were fun to use but didn't really seem 'animal.' The only animal who's ability lines up with what I would guess is the bird that allows you to glide. But for some reason hitting a dead bird teleports you to it and the lizard shoots bullets and the ducks explode, these could be anything besides animals and they'd make more sense. I also only used the lizard during the lizard tutorial where it forces you to, mostly because it has no mobility use besides shooting birds and that use isn't worth the fact that I don't know how to drop it and can't pick up other animals D:

I said that the game was a ton of fun at it's most fun and this is true. However I think the game spent way too little time in it's most fun. I liked the part of the first level with the speed boosts and the ramps and I wish the entire game was more like that. I think the birds kind of force you to slow down and glide, especially in level 3, along with the platforming being really precise sometimes. The gravity also felt a bit too high and punishing especially for the rock section at the start of level 3. You said you'd continue work if you make it to r3, I really hope you do and keep this in mind because I really want to play a really fast fun and cool sonic platformer. If you do make it to r3, I'd remove all the animals but the duck and reskin it to something that makes more sense along with focusing on level design that promotes fun more than being careful and skillful because that's what games are about.

Oh, and I had a few bugs especially with the items and respawning. Sometimes I'd respawn and items would be missing, sometimes I'd respawn with an item that I didn't have. On the topic of jank, falling down a pit generally kills you except sometimes when you need to fall and trust that there's somewhere for you to go. This could be easily fixed by just adding a down arrow above places you are supposed to do a trust fall.

Good luck, I'd love to see how this game evolves if you make it to the next round. Great job!

Very well done. The story was heartfelt and enjoyable and the book was a nice touch. I wish the text showed up a bit faster or there was an option to skip the animation, I almost skipped the story because I get easily annoyed by slow text (but I'm very glad I stuck with it.) The mechanics were really fun and I had a great time playing. You mention not having time to finish the final level at the end but I wish you hadn't, I felt like I had just had a full experience and that just made me consider what was missing rather than enjoying what was there. Overall, very well done, great evolution from round 1.

You were stressing me out the discord server but this really came together. The length and difficulty were very well tuned (unlike SOME game I know 🐦), it didn't feel easy and took a few tries but never felt unfairly hard. The polish was pretty impressive considering the time it was put together in. The story felt a little bit disconnected with the gameplay but the projectiles and animals were worked together very cohesively. I saw you said this was your first jam where you used digital art instead of pixel art and I think it looks great! I did the same with my game but only for UI and a cutscene. Great job (especially for just over a day of work)!

Thanks so much for playing! The length is an issue and I did NOT think the game would take nearly this long. My friend (my main playtester) beat the game in like 15 minutes their first time through, which I think is due to their experience with the genre. Probably why it also got too hard, also.

I think the reason for the higher difficulty and longer game is that somewhere during the jam I stopped making my game for the jam and started making it for me, as I was having so much fun. Is the map probably too large for a game jam? Yes. Is the difficulty curve going to ward off players from completing the game? Probably. But I like it. While I do want other people to enjoy it, that stopped being my priority. And I don't think I regret that.

I'm glad you enjoyed it even with its objective flaws (:

I had a lot of fun with this game! I think having shoot bound to the mouse would have been better. I initially assumed there were only stat buff upgrades from the first few I was offered but was pleasantly surprised when I discovered the variety available.  Combining the projectiles with the animals was a sneaky devious move that in my opinion definitely made the whole game more cohesive. I wish the enemies had a bit more contrast with the ground as generally for me when playing video games (and this is a me problem) I tunnel vision into very specific things. This meant that while chasing one enemy I just wouldn't process the other one or multiple heading towards me, and I think if their color had been a bit brighter and if the grass didn't render on top of them that might have resolved the issue. This was a ton of fun, and I'll probably come back to this later to attempt to get a better score. Well done!

Another metroidvania! This was cute but everything just felt slow, especially with the amount of times you need to navigate back and forth through the same areas. I really liked having the central mechanic of a spear that you upgrade throughout the game but the dog as a mechanic felt horrible and was very glitchy, the part where you need to use it on the button I just skipped over. The spear being used for both platforming and combat was neat but the combat was lacking and with only a limited amount of enemies in the game that don't respawn I was left wanting a little more.  Having most of the falls result in you just having to repeat a section you've already done several times was a little bit cruel. I still got some enjoyment out of it, though. Overall, nicely done.

Metroidvania gang!! This game was great, follows up Shift Shape magnificently.  The projectiles and animals were incorporated so well, some of the continued games from round 1 felt like they had the themes shoved in but I think they make the game much better here. The snakes were cool as they force the player to sort of make their own puzzles and the projectiles added an interesting level of positioning. Some things I did felt really unintended but I think that just made it much more fun to do. My only complaint was that moving around felt kind of slow which led me to not want to backtrack much, the shortcut in snake tower is great but other than that going from one end of the map to another just takes a while. With some more mechanics and variety I could absolutely see a full metroidvania in this, amazing job.

This game was still cute and still fun. There was still some jank from the first round and I'm not sure if the secret and desert levels are meant to loop. pew pew noise funny.  The platformer controller felt good, I still had the same issue with the camera as I did in the first round. I wish it stayed as zoomed out as it was in the tutorial level(s). The platforming is very fun and it was an enjoyable enough time, nicely done!

Let me start with the positive - the art and atmosphere are gorgeous. The story was fairly engaging and kept me playing. That being said, the game didn't really come together for me. This is probably a personal thing, but I felt kind of bored throughout the whole game. First of all, the gameplay was pretty repetitive and menial. I think that expanding the map wasn't a great choice as it just increased the tedium of finding the right rabbits, maybe having more variations or rabbits that look more similar to one another, to make it more risky to play. I think having a menial task like this as the main game loop could serve as a great vessel for horror but my other issue was that the game wasn't scary, and I think there's a lot of reasons why. Firstly there's no actual indication that you are in danger. The music is still calm and the vibes are still immaculate. There was at least one moment where there was a monster chasing me and I didn't notice. Having some adaptive music, maybe a tint on the screen or a vignette would have gone a long way. The other thing is that the monsters are complete nonthreats. I don't think I got hit once over both my playthroughs (during the jam and right now). They are way slower than the player, and not only that but shooting knocks them back and stuns them. Something I did in my first round game was have the monster increase slowly in speed, creating moments on tension where they're close but then you pull ahead but then they start getting closer. This forces you to get out of danger as quickly as possible too. Finally, there's never a moment where you are actually forced into danger. If you are just careful while playing, even if you don't know to avoid them, you might not encounter a single threat.

This feedback may come across as overly critical or negative but I think that's because I genuinely wanted to love this game. I thought that it looked amazing, and found the ideas behind it and it's story incredibly compelling. This game was very polished and did a great job incorporating individual elements, they just didn't come together for me.

Already gave a lot of my thoughts so I'll make this brief. Having the hover over the cards was a really cool improvement, especially since it allows you to take a look at others' builds. I feel like healing was a little overpowered or at least just not fun to play or play against personally, I like poison a lot and healing directly countered that which is probably part of the reason I dislike it. I will almost certainly come back and try to top the leaderboards, great job!

This game is absolutely packed with character and charm. Had a great time, only played through story but I may come back to try the other modes later. The animals and the story and the art are just so cute. I had a horrible time during the aim training level as it felt pretty bad to aim but not egregiously so, however my cannons stopped firing and I had to restart the story. I found that even though I was having a horrible time I was also having a great time because of all the charm and cuteness. The story mode alone was incredibly impressive given the time constraints, and great job working in the story and the animals and mostly the projectiles. Well done, very impressive!

Glad you enjoyed :D also wondering what kind of bugs you came across, as a lot of the bugs that people have reported I've been unable to recreate.

sorry to spam but healing has been REMOVED. this makes you one of a small group of people who were able to experience healing. congrats

can i have some more info? are you doing anything while healing? whats actually happening, does just nothing happen?

the healing isn't working and i dont know why 

Hi, I can't seem to recreate the issue. Are you sure you're fulfilling all the requirements to heal (hold down the button and also have at least 1 seed and 1 health missing). It can also be a browser specific issue, what browser are you using?

Okay thanks for confirming, I’ll try to fix the issue tonight. 

thanks so much for playing! Sorry the tutorial wasn’t great, time was running out and I needed to throw something together. To heal you need to hold down the button and also have at least 1 seed and 1 health missing, that probably wasn’t clear. It also could have been a bug.

I want to continue development so I’m wondering if you’d like to see this as a full metroidvania.

Thanks again!

lol thanks, the play by play is actually very helpful for feedback (besides being whimsy and fun).

Thanks for playing, I watched the stream too and it’s very helpful to see it play out like that thanks so much for doing that! Running around and grabbing the fireflies has definitely always been an issue to balance out and while is the easier difficulties it’s definitely possible, in the harder ones (hard is my preferred) it’s definitely a worse strategy (although definitely MUCH harder to balance feeding the fire).

I haven’t considered the farming route but that actually sounds very interesting, I might consider that. Thanks for playing!

Over-using torches? There is no such thing. I love torches

Thanks for playing! I wanted to add an easy mode in case anyone was struggling and wanted to add a harder mode too, as the dev I found the game way too easy. Then hard was too easy for me so I added deadly and that one is VERY challenging, I’ve only beaten it once and if anyone else manages to do so as well they deserve a prize.

I don’t remember whether I used GetAxis or GetAxisRaw but I do remember that the move direction is Normalized, meaning that it shouldn’t have a huge effect either way. I think the main issue may be that the players walk animation needs to finish before it can stop. Just because without that, the players rotation would snap back and that wouldn’t look very good. There’s probably a bit of maintained velocity but since the controls don’t need to be precise for anything I think it may be mostly fine. I might look into different ways to do the animation, thanks for playing and giving feedback.

Thanks for playing! Really happy with how the music turned out, it's really simple but might be my favorite I've made for one of my games.

Maybe my favorite game so far just in terms of gameplay experience. The progression felt almost perfect. Every upgrade, except for maybe the movement ones, felt impactful but not overpowered. Never did the grind become too tedious or time consuming and by the time I was razing the entire final level it felt well-earned instead of a byproduct of really op upgrades. The amount of juice was perfect and made it insanely satisfying. There was definitely some lacking variety but I'd love to see more stuff in later rounds, assuming you get through and want to continue work on this. Amazing job!

Such a unique and interesting game idea! The jump felt really bad though, probably because of the lack of coyote time and because you couldn't even go up 1 tile, making it near useless. Sometimes it felt really hard to line up the shape right, maybe if they're close enough the shapes you turn into automatically snap into a grid so that you don't have to get them perfect. I think this would be really awesome as a metroidvania (metroidbrainia?) type game where you have to find new shapes to access different areas. I also kind of wish there was the ability to move my face without moving the shape (or needing a wall), especially since the WASD keys weren't used at all. Well done!

Fun game! The controls felt very nice which made it an enjoyable experience overall. The controls were a bit slippery, which was actually very fun at some parts but the levels are designed at points to make you do precise movements, which don't feel good. I feel like the dash was underused, especially since it just gets taken away from you at multiple points. Although it adds more of a challenge, just removing the player's ability to do something doesn't feel great and I would also consider the fact that managing to skip parts of the level or do it in an unintended way is way more fun - even if it's way harder sometimes. Also carrying the boxes felt a little bit weird and they were VERY easy to smuggle in different places throughout the levels. The main menu felt a little unintuitive, but it wasn't that bad. A lot of these are little nitpicks but I think my main issue was with the camera. With the speed at which the player is going if you head in a direction the camera lags behind you, leaving only ~15% of the screen focused on where you're actually going. I see you're using unity and would guess you are using cinemachine, maybe increase the lookahead time in the body of the camera? I usually do that for my games. 

I gave a lot of criticism but I did enjoy my time in Billy World and hope to see more, good luck (: